What better way to celebrate a birthday than with a big present? So Metrolink celebrates its 20th birthday today with the promise of twenty further new trams to arrive by 2014 and replace all the remaining original trams which are starting to show their age.

Many happy returns, Metrolink. You’ve had your share of growing pains in your teenage years, but now as you mature into your twenties, we hope that the best is yet to come.

It would require electrification at a different voltage: whether Hertfordshire would be happy with second-hand, supposedly unreliable trams is debateable. And if there are any plans for street-running in later stages, then maybe Midland Metro’s low-floor sister T-69s would be more suitable (along with lowering of platforms)?